When we see science fiction stories lay during the Victorian and Edwardian eras , the artificer Nikola Tesla tend to show up an painful tidy sum . But the priggish earned run average and the early 20th century are fill up with artificer who led fascinating lives , survive that just do n’t tend to turn up in fiction .
Background of top image byJohn Lemieux .
Some of these inventors ’ calling post them firmly in the Victorian earned run average . Others , like Tesla himself , started their vocation in the Victorian geological era and continued to live and work into the 20th century . And while they may not have worked on project as with as visually telling results as Nikola Tesla ’s promotional material photos , they had very interesting lifespan — and innovation — all the same
Harry Houdini may have the more famous name , but degree magician John Nevil Maskelyne ( 1839 - 1917 ) was also a famous debunker of the supernatural and discoverer of both magical trick and useful machine . Maskelyne got his start as a magician after watching a brace medium known as the Davenport Brothers do a spirit cabinet illusion . The Davenports arrogate that their tricks were genuinely supernatural , but Maskelyne collaborated with furniture maker George Alfred Cooke to build a flavour cabinet of their own , which they used to expose the brothers as fraud .
Maskelyne devoted the sleep of his life history to create deception and exposing cheaters and frauds . He famously do at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly . He invented a levitation conjuring trick . He wrote a volume uncover the whoremaster of board sharps . And , in 1914 , he founded the Occult Committee , an organization devoted to exposing fraudulent practitioners of the supernatural . So he was n’t precisely a Victorian ghostbuster , but he was a medium - baby buster . He also found time to invent the pay toilet , or rather a lock that would only give if you order a coin inside .
John Nevil Maskelyne was hardly the only penis of his kinsfolk with a flair for excogitate both illusions and practical machine . His Logos Nevil Maskelyne was n’t just a thaumaturge , but also a rival of radio set trailblazer Guglielmo Marconi . The young Maskelyneinterrupted one of Marconi ’s 1903 demonstrations . Before Marconi could demonstrate the ability to transmit Morse code over 100 of geographical mile , Nevil Maskelyne transmitted a signal of his own , causing Marconi ’s Morse codification printer to spew out a content accuse the Italian artificer of “ diddling the public . ”
When Hertha Ayrton ( 1854 - 1923 ) , bear Phoebe Sarah Marks , was first put forward as a possible fellow at the Royal Society in 1902 , she was refuse on the basis that a married woman was not view an eligible campaigner for fellowship . During her life , Ayrton was not just recognized for her own scientific achievements ; she also campaigned for the acknowledgment of other female scientists .
Ayrton was bear in England to an needy clocksmith who had fled Poland to escape anti - Semitic persecution , but grow up with educator aunt . Young Sarah Marks check mathematics and school of thought and eventually attended Cambridge ’s Girton College . She took course of instruction in electricity from electrical engine driver and physics prof William Edward Ayrton , whom she later tie . Professor Ayrton encouraged his married woman ’s independent scientific and numerical endeavor . By then , she had already patent a drafting tool yell a line - divider , a machine ridiculed by some for its simplicity , but which many who used it affect as magic .
Despite being rejected as a fellow in 1902 , Ayrton was the first adult female to understand her theme before the Royal Society in 1904 , an investigation on Baroness Dudevant ripples . For her study on gumption ripple and the galvanizing arc , the Royal Society also present Ayrton the Hughes Medal . As she was being spot for her own oeuvre , she also insisted that other woman be recognized for theirs . When journalists neglect to attribute the discovery of radium to Marie Curie , focusing instead on Curie ’s hubby , Pierre , Ayrton wrote in a 1909 edition of The Westminster Gazette , “ erroneousness are notoriously hard to kill , but an error that impute to a man what was actually the work of a adult female has more lives than a cat . ” And that ’s all before we get intoher work on the Ayrton fan , a twist plan to repel poison gas during World War I.
Her name is also interesting . A womb-to-tomb agnostic , Ayrton interchange her name to “ Hertha ” after a verse form by Algernon Charles Swinburne that was critical of organized religion . It was a emblematical interval from the Judaic faith of her parent .
Nikola Tesla was hardly the only discoverer who quarreled with Thomas Edison . Hiram Maxim ( 1840 - 1916 ) is one of legion artificer who , like Edison , lay claim to the incandescent lamp . But while Maine - born inventor is said to have registered 271 patents in his life-time , he ’s belike well roll in the hay for his work on the car heavy weapon .
Maxim receive his first patent at age 26 , for an improved curling iron . The adult male literally built a beneficial mousetrap ( one that mechanically reset ) . He was fascinated by the idea of flying political machine , and his research would give birth to an amusement parkland drive , the “ Captive Flying simple machine . ”
1907 Postcard featuring the confined Flying Machine , via .
As chief engineer of the United States Electric Lighting Company , Maxim installed many of New York ’s first electric light source and fight with Thomas Edison over the cerebral property of the lightbulb ( this is leaving out Joseph Swan , who received a letters patent on his lightbulb in 1880 ) . He moved to England in 1881 to reorganize the United States Electric Lighting Company ’s London offices . But he ’d eventually become notorious for something far more deathly than electric lighting .
Maxim would later write to the Times of Londonabout the genesis of the machine gun :
In 1882 I was in Vienna , where I met an American whom I had known in the States . He said : ‘ Hang your chemistry and electrical energy ! If you need to make a pile of money , invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others ’ throats with expectant adroitness .
That ’s exactly what he did . He prepare the Maxim gun , which used recoil to expel the pickup that had just been used and load the next cartridge . He made that pile of money and received a knighthood from Queen Victoria ( although he was actually knight by King Edward VII ) . All that for create a automobile of mass murder , just in prison term for World War I.PBS notes , “ Maxim died on November 24 , 1916 , only days before the Battle of the Somme , where over one million soldiers fell in four months of machine gun war . ”
His personal life story hold its share of machination as well . Maxim ’s son Hiram Percy Maxim , atomic number 27 - founding father of the American Radio Relay League , write a Holy Scripture about originate up with his father , A Genius in the Family , that ’s supposed to contain rather diverting anecdote of Maxim household life . The elder Maxim also hold up through a public dirt when a womanhood call Helen Leighton accused him of bigamy . The charge were finally dropped , but not before Maxim was hold back and the matter turned up in the papers .
There are legion stories of artificer who had their invention stolen by opportunistic abusers of the patent of invention system , but Margaret Knight ( 1838 - 1914 ) is one inventor who press back and won . Knight ’s schematic education ended when she was 12 eld old , when she went to work in a textile manufactory . That ’s also when she developed her first conception . After witnesses an accident in a mill , Knight developed a machine that would block the motion of a picky machine if something got catch in it . Her invention made its way into other factories , but at the sentence neither Knight nor her category extremity were familiar with the patent of invention process , so she did n’t get to own her idea .
However , Knight would have a formative experience with patent of invention law years by and by . She was work in a paper bagful factory when she figured out a more efficient way of folding and gluing paper bags — one very alike to the same summons today . So she invented a automobile that could execute her more efficient process . Before she had an opportunity to patent it , however , a man named Charles Annan inspect her machine and filed a patent on it . When Knight teach Annan had a patent on file , she took him to court .
Annan argued that a womanhood was n’t capable of inventing such a machine , but Knight had , well , literal substantiation . She had detailed musical note that she keep on the machine , and the court grant her the patent of invention . Knight would go on to grow a number of other innovation , mostly making other improvements on industrial process .
Who invented the moving motion picture ? Thomas Edison and Auguste and Louis Lumière are frequently cited as trailblazer of cinematography , but an discoverer who gets far less press isLouis Aimé Augustin Le Prince(1841 - 1890 ? ) . Le Prince ’s father take place to be a supporter of Louis Daguerre , and Le Prince learned about the alchemy and technology of picture taking at an former eld . He eventually moved to Leeds , where he joined a brass metalworks business firm , married , and founded a technical school of art with his wife .
Le Prince eventually moved on from the foundry business firm and began function on motion motion picture . He registered for an American patent of invention on a method and setup “ For Producing Animated Pictures of Natural Scenery and Life ” in 1886 , and the patent was finally granted . In 1888 , he film the “ Roundhay Garden Scene , ” the oldest surviving photographic film :
In 1890 , Le Prince and his married woman Lizzie were ready to take the project public . They plan to exhibit the run pictures in New York ’s Jumel Mansion , but something strange pass off before they got a chance . In September , 1890 , Le Prince room a gearing from Bourges , France , to Dijon and was never seen again .
There are numerous possibility as to why Le Prince disappeared . Perhaps he trust felo-de-se to escape his debts . Perhaps he was slay by rivals . Whatever happened , no body has been once and for all key out , and the mystery remains .
Norbert Rillieux(1806 - 1894 ) was born to a white woodlet proprietor ( whose babe happened to be the nan of Edgar Degas ) and a free disastrous cleaning lady in New Orleans . Rillieux was train , in part , in France , where he advert École Centrale and studied purgative and technology and eventually became a lecturer in applied mechanics .
One of Rillieux ’s most famous inventions , however , turned out to be a great blessing to the sugar industry in his nursing home state . Some metre around 1831 , Rillieux spring up an improved process for purification sugar . Edmund Forstall , who was build a new Louisiana Sugar Refinery with the helper of one of Rillieux ’s brother , learn about the process and invited Rillieux to be the refinery ’s head engine driver . Rillieux accepted and returned to Louisiana , though his professional kinship with Forstall did not last long .
In the years before the American Civil War , Rillieux ’s attainment as an engineer were much in demand among Louisiana sugar plantation owners , buthe did not welcome the same treatment that a white engineer would have . He could install his sugar evaporators at plantation , but he could not sleep in the “ bighearted home ” with a white family . At one point , he hope to hold his engineering talent toward the drainage of New Orleans lowlands , but his proposal of marriage was blocked by his former employer Forstall . The historiographer Charles Rousseve claimed that Rillieux ’s proposal was reject because of “ sentiment against free hoi polloi of color . ”
Amidst increase restrictions on free black people in New Orleans , Rillieux return to France . His interest wrench to Egyptology , although he continued to make expert invention well into his life , patent a novel organization for work sugar beets at age 75 .
Okay , this is a really uncanny story . The Smithsonian Magazinetells the full story of James McClintock , who is perhaps comfortably known for his work project the H. L. Hunley , the Confederate submarine that became the first sub to drop down an enemy ship . ( The Hunley also slide down . Twice . It ’s remains arecurrently on displayin North Charleston , South Carolina , and while it ’s a pricey sojourn , I recommend turn back it out if you ’re in town . )
The Hunley was laid down in 1863 , but McClintock ’s strange tale extends far later than that . In the 1870s , McClintock and a couple of collaborators were working on volatile munition , and on one black even in 1879 , he ( apparently ) paid the cost for his experiments . He and a bunch adult male row out in Boston Harbor with a mine moderate 35 pound of dynamite . Shortly afterward , an blowup was hear . The mine had exploded , supposedly have both man and the boat with it .
The end of the story ? Hardly . In 1880 , closely a full yr after the explosion , a homo see British consul Robert Clipperton in Philadelphia , claim that he was James McClintock and that he had been lease by members of the Irish Fenian movement to construct torpedos . For a fee , the Isle of Man claim to be McClintock offered to sabotage his employer ’s torpedos and give work sample of the weapons to the British .
In the end , this gentleman’s gentleman calling himself McClintock pocketed money from both the British government and his Fenian employers , and never provided either with the promise torpedos . He disappear before his genuine indistinguishability could be discovered . The piece in the Smithsonian examines the possibility that the real McClintock faked his decease only to resurface in Philadelphia , but also hint that the valet de chambre may have been one of McClintock ’s former spouse , one of the manpower involved in his fateful arm experiments .
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